The Burden of Surviving as a Black Girl in America

6/15/2015

by Khadijah Costley White on Quartz This past weekend, millions of people watched a terrible sce...

by Khadijah Costley White on Quartz

This past weekend, millions of people watched a terrible scene unfold—we held our breath as a white police officer grabbed a black girl in a bathing suit by her hair and sat down on her. We heard her sobbing, we watched the officer pull out his gun and point it at two boys as they responded to her cries.
In that video from McKinney, Texas, we saw one boy who had run from the officer’s gun, get dragged back by two policemen. We watched in horror, praying that we were not witnessing an execution. And today we breathed a collective sigh of relief when we learned that this officer, corporal Eric Casebolt, had resigned. Hopefully, he will never get another opportunity to hurt someone vulnerable again.

We all know the names of black boys and men killed by police (or wannabe police)—Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Akai Gurley, and Amadou Diallo. We also know—although we also tend tend to forget—the names of women and girls lost in the very same way: Rekia Boyd, Tarika Wilson, Aiyana Jones, Miriam Carey and others, lost in the backdrop to a narrative that focuses on the ongoing clash between white and black masculinity.

But I also worry about the black girls who survive. I wonder about that girl in the video, pleading and sobbing as people stand around without helping. I am washed away by her terror, that panic that strikes when you realize that you could be killed amid a crowd of onlookers, and that no one will do anything to stop it.

I can’t stop thinking about the black girls who survive.

I think about Tamir Rice’s sister, Tajai, the girl attacked and handcuffed by police as she tried to reach her baby brother as he bled to death.

And Rachel Jeantel, who told her best friend to run away from an armed man following him in the dark—she survived.